Linguistic and Cultural Adaptation of Web-based Partner Violence Screening and Safety Planning Applications

One in 3 women will experience intimate partner violence (IPV) in her lifetime. COVID-19 has tripled the IPV prevalence while simultaneously shutting down in-person services creating unique challenges for women experiencing violence. Technology has been one of the few means to reach out to and support women living with IPV. While cisgender women in heterosexual relationships comprise the largest number of those experiencing IPV in Canada, rates of abuse for women can be higher and more complex in racialized and other marginalized communities due to intersectional structural stressors. Unfortunately, services and resources are disproportionally scarce to support these populations. Existing IPV app resources are predominantly in English and for use among women in heterosexual relationships. We have an opportunity to expand the availability of screening and safety planning online, to non-English speaking communities. The objective of this work is to culturally and linguistically adapt existing evidence-based screening () and safety planning ( and ) web-apps to reflect the appropriateness of IPV apps for French and Spanish speaking communities. Our community partners for this initiative have identified an urgent need for our evidence-based apps to be made available to French and Spanish speaking populations with French being an official language of Canada, and Spanish also a commonly spoken language in Canada among many cultural populations. Our apps will be iteratively reviewed, revised and tested for acceptability by identified cultural survivors and IPV service providers. Once developed, we will employ the strategies outlined through a user guide developed by our team to assist partners in implementing these apps within their service settings.